


practice makes perfect

by notnowcommander



Series: Do Not Go Quietly [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Twin Shepard AU, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11945556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notnowcommander/pseuds/notnowcommander
Summary: After John drunkenly confesses his feelings for Kaidan, and then avoiding him for days, he decides it's time to do something, and hopefully not tragically embarrass himself in the process.A oneshot about John and Kaidan's first kiss set in the Do Not Go Quietly universe!





	practice makes perfect

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in my head for some time now, and definitely want to write more oneshots in this universe, so feel free to send ideas my way!
> 
> You definitely don't need to read the full longfic to read and enjoy this one, though. And I swear I'm not doing this because the story is about to get real tragic or anything.

“I think you should just talk to him,” Jane says, sharpening her knife against a rock. John focuses on what she’s doing because it numbs the anxiety nipping at him.

“How would you respond to someone who slipped up and said they liked you?”

Jane looks up at him and sighs. “I don’t know. I’d talk to them. It’s not something that I’d let simmer for that long.” 

Kaidan hadn’t said much to John in the past few days, and perhaps it was John’s own fault. He’d definitely been avoiding Kaidan, and trying to work through his own feelings first. He wasn’t sure if he _actually_ cared for Kaidan, or if he was just horny and hitting a point where not even the zombie apocalypse could sate his desire. After all, he was twenty-one and had never even kissed anyone.

Kaidan mentioned that he was into guys as well, and it had given John some hope that perhaps he’d be interested in him. But he knew better by now than to get his hopes up. Kaidan was handsome, and smart, and kind. Meanwhile, John is pretty scrawny with a bad farmer’s tan, and a poorly assembled IKEA chair could still get more ass than him. He just can’t help but feel like even if they were the last people on Earth, Kaidan still wouldn’t go for him.

Though, Kaidan hadn’t necessarily responded _negatively_ to John’s untimely confession. They’d been sitting around the campfire together, and Kaidan had been lamenting that he needed to shave and take a shower, and John was stupid enough to tell him he still looked perfectly handsome and that anyone would be lucky to have him. The last part was completely unnecessary, and made John turn all kinds of red. Kaidan had smiled, and before he could thank John, John had scurried inside in shame.

“He would never like me back.”

“You don’t know that,” Jane reassures him, “look, I know you’ve never really had a crush on someone before, but this is all part of it. You gotta go through that natural phase of totally hating yourself and overthinking everything to get through it and get something done.”

“And what do I get done?” he asks.

“I don’t know, make a move or something.”

John laughs. “Oh god, no way.”

“Come on, I know it sucks, but you’ve gotta do something. Now you’ve got two choices here-.”

“Die?”

“No, dying isn’t one of them,” she corrects. “Either way, you’re going to have to talk to Kaidan. Hackett and Anderson are going to send us out again, and they will more likely than not put us with Kaidan, and like _hell_ if I’m being an awkward third wheel for you two.”

“Thank you so much for the support,” John sighs.

“You need to talk to him. And when you do, you can do one of two things. You could tell him that you were just kidding, or that even if you weren’t, you didn’t intend on making him feel weird or acting on it, and would like to just remain scouting partners. Or…”

“Oh no,” he groans.

“Or you could tell him how you really feel.”

How _did_ Kaidan make him really feel? It’s still so unfamiliar that he doesn’t know what his feelings are really doing. Whenever he’s around Kaidan, he feels excited, hopeful that maybe there will be some new advancement, some new progression in their relationship. Every moment together makes him hope that _something_ will happen, something to hold onto and take to sleep with him every night.

“I just… I don’t know if I can do that,” John says.

“Of course you can. And look, if it’s totally embarrassing and makes you hate yourself, we can go be on our own again.”

John swallows, and looks in the direction of the Safe House behind them. Kaidan’s in there somewhere, and all it would take is just asking him for a few minutes alone. He’s done such a great job of avoiding Kaidan all together for the past few days and has made any conversation totally impossible. He’d duck out during meal times to go eat alone, just to avoid having to be around Kaidan, or telling Jane to handle it if they had any matters to settle. He feels like a coward, but he’s worried that rejection will feel even worse.

“Okay.”

“You’re going to do something about it?” Jane asks.

“I think so.”

“Hell yeah. Go and get ‘em.”

“I’d rather not.”

She stands up and slips her knife back into her boot. She pulls John in for a hug. He holds on tight and squeezes her.

“You can do this. And even if things don’t go the way you want them to, you were never in the wrong. It’s not wrong to feel things.”

John rests his head on top of hers and doesn’t want to let go. Jane’s always been better at handling the tough stuff, especially things that involve talking. He wishes she could go talk to Kaidan for him.

“It’s going to be okay,” she tells him, and steps away.

He backs up and tries to compose himself. “Thanks. I’ll… be back.”

“Don’t rush,” Jane teases, sitting back down by the fire.

John paces inside and heads for the dormitories, keeping his eyes peeled for Kaidan. He’d gone up to his room to shower and decompress from being out in the field, but that was a while ago. Maybe John would get lucky and Kaidan would be in the shower, and not around. He could live with putting this off a bit longer. He stops once he reaches Kaidan’s hallway and sees his door open. He groans to himself, but pushes forward and hovers in front of the door for a moment before knocking.

Kaidan sits on his bed, lacing up his boots. His hair’s still damp from his shower, but he’s clean shaven and looks somewhat relaxed. He looks so incredibly handsome, and John thinks it’s simultaneously a great motivator, and reminder of what he’ll lose if Kaidan doesn’t want him.

Kaidan looks up at the knock, and gives a wary look at him. “Hey.”

“Mind if I come in for a moment?”

Kaidan shrugs, and shakes his head. “No, go ahead.”

“I just wanted to talk because-.”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me for days now.”

“What? I-.”

Kaidan holds up a hand to get him to stop talking. Maybe it’s a good thing if Kaidan handles the talking. He doesn’t seem mad, maybe just a little frustrated, and paces toward John.

“Because you told me that you thought I was hot and hinted that you liked me, and then just _vanished._ You won’t talk to me, or make eye contact, and I’m smart enough to figure out that you’re completely avoiding me.”

“I mean,” John begins, “I totally embarrassed myself. I shouldn’t have said anything. We’re out here in the goddamn apocalypse and nobody has time to be hooking up and falling in love. It’s pointless, I guess. And I probably just made you feel-.”

John’s so caught up in what he’s saying and spewing his own bullshit that he doesn’t notice how close Kaidan’s gotten to him. 

“What?” Kaidan interrupts.

“I probably made you feel really weird, and I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do that. I was just a little drunk and said stuff I shouldn’t have,” John finishes. He hopes Kaidan doesn’t notice how badly his hands are shaking. He isn’t sure that it’s the right thing to have said, but it feels like a weight off his shoulders. It feels better than nothing. “So, yeah… I’m sorr-.”

And then he’s shoved against the wall, and he feels Kaidan’s lips against his. For a moment, he’s not even sure it’s real, and then Kaidan cups his face and presses their bodies together. John doesn’t know what to do. Should he touch him too? Should he kiss back? Does he even know _how_ to kiss back?

All he knows is how good Kaidan feels pressed up against him, how warm his body feels and how soft his lips are. He kisses him back — or at least that’s what he thinks he’s doing — and he can taste Kaidan’s smile on his lips. Heat spreads all over his body, and he knows that all the feelings he was having were completely real, and that this was the kind of thing he was hoping to get from Kaidan.

Kaidan bites down on his lip and John moans into his mouth, and slips his hands to Kaidan’s waist. Then, he pulls away, and he’s gone before John can even think about what just happened. He still tastes him on his lips and can smell the fresh scent of his soap, but he hears Kaidan move down the hall and not come back.

 

***

 

It’s been an hour, and John is still shaking. He feels a little bit like he’s about to throw up and feels equal parts horrified and excited. He thinks the only option now is to go talk to Jane about it. He finds her in her room, and leans against the door, shaking. She looks up, optimistic, but quickly figures something else is going on.

“How’d it go?”

John doesn’t answer, just pulls himself into her room and sits on her bed. She eyes him warily, and goes over to him. She clutches his shaking hands, and kneels in front of him.

“Hey, what’s up? What happened? You look… sick.”

Her eyes fill with dread. It’s been long enough that something _else_ could have happened in that time. Maybe there was an attack in another part of the building, or maybe his talk with Kaidan and taken an entirely different turn.

“Hey, did… are you okay?”

John suddenly realizes. “Oh… oh, yeah like, I’m _okay._ Like, I’m not dying or anything. Well, maybe.”

His hands keep shaking and he takes in a deep breath. 

“Jesus, you had me thinking that you got bit or something.”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

“So…” she begins, “what happened? Why the hell are you shaking so bad?”

John swallows and finally finds words. “He… uh… kissed me.”

Jane’s quiet for a moment, and he’s expecting her to be excited and happy for him, but instead, she shoves his leg. 

“Oh my god, you have to be fucking kidding me. All this because he _kissed_ you?” she shakes her head. “Jesus, John, you gotta get out more.”

 

***

 

Later that night, John finds Kaidan sitting outside by the fire, and thinks maybe the only natural thing to do is join him. Kaidan didn’t come to the mess for dinner, and maybe the tables have turned. Maybe Kaidan’s avoiding him now too. It feels good for John to have the ball in his court again.

He moves quietly to not alarm Kaidan, but takes a seat next to him on the ground. He hopes that their kiss was something mutually felt, not just Kaidan trying to pity him or make him feel better about his awkward confession. Maybe Kaidan actually does feel something for him too.

Kaidan barely looks up as he sits down, and John can tell he feels uncomfortable.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Kaidan replies, “can’t sleep?”

“Something like that.”

He gives a twinge of a smile, and looks away. “Or you’re just trying to corner me.”

John smiles back. “Could you blame me?”

“No,” Kaidan says, “I couldn’t. I think I have a little to answer for. Did you mean it?”

“Hmm?”

“What you said. Did you mean it when you said that anyone would be lucky to have me?”

John nods. “I did. Did you mean it when you kissed me?”

Kaidan nods too. “I did. Uh, sorry… about that. It was a little abrupt, I guess. And maybe I don't have much right to be judging you for anything.”

“It’s okay,” John replies, “I liked it. I… well, I like you.”

“You don’t say.”

“Shut up,” John laughs. 

Kaidan’s quiet for a moment, and swallows. “I guess it’s a good thing I like you too then.”

John scoots a little closer and watches him. There’s a hesitation in Kaidan’s eyes, like he doesn’t _want_ to like him back. He knows what happened with Rahna, and how he was left for dead in a place he didn’t know. Maybe that was what Kaidan thought of love. Maybe he thought everyone would leave him the way she did, and that there was no point. John wonders if he’s been alone since then.

“You… you start to feel things when you travel with someone, when you have to have their back for weeks at a time in the middle of the apocalypse. It changes you, changes how you feel about someone,” he says.

John looks up. He understands that all too well. He’d been infatuated with Kaidan from the moment they met, but John chalked it up to being naive and horny. And he knows he wasn’t wrong. But spending weeks at a time with Kaidan, knowing that they had to protect one another, work together to complete their missions… it made him see him differently. He watched as Kaidan cared for him and Jane, when he really didn’t _have_ to to a personal degree. Kaidan looked out for them, patched them up, reassured them everything would be okay. John doesn't know how much longer he and Jane could have lasted on their own without him.

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes you don’t want it to, but it happens anyway.” 

He sits up and looks down at John. He looks so beautiful in this light, the moon shining down on them, the fire casting an orange glow around his face. His hair’s dried from his shower, and a clean shave makes him look much younger than usual. And his lips… John hasn’t stopped thinking about them since.

John thinks that maybe he can be a little bold here. If Kaidan was bold enough to shove him against a wall and kiss him, he can at the very least hold his hand. John reaches out and brushes his hand against Kaidan’s, and their fingers weave together. Kaidan slides closer and hovers over John. 

“I care about you a lot, and… well, I don’t want to pretend that I don’t,” Kaidan whispers.

“Me either.” 

Kaidan leans down, resting a hand at the center of John’s chest. A rush of excitement moves through him. He’s going to kiss him again. He feels stupid for being so excited about a kiss at his age. All his high school friends talked about this sort of thing when they were twelve, not twenty-one. But then again, they were dickheads, so John decides being excited is perfectly okay.

“I’d never done that before.”

“What?”

“Kissed someone,” John says, slightly embarrassed.

Kaidan gives a warm smile, to his surprise. “That’s okay. Sorry your first kiss had to be such a huge mess.”

John smiles back. “It’s alright. Maybe it’s okay because it hid how I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“It’s fine,” Kaidan says, leaning in closer, “there’s always time to practice.”

He presses his lips against John’s, softly this time. Kaidan slides his hand up to the side of John’s face and he kisses back. Kaidan lets out a pleased sigh into his mouth, and moves closer. He pulls away to catch his breath, and John finds that he can’t catch his own. He’s just left with an urge to kiss him again. 

John grips Kaidan’s hair and pulls him in again. He feels Kaidan smile, and John brings his hands to Kaidan’s waist. He pulls him closer, fingers teasing his belt loops, and Kaidan slides on top of him. Kaidan feels so good up against him, and his lips taste like magic. Kaidan bites down on his bottom lip and John moans into his mouth. Now he knows what he’s been missing all these years, but he’s so glad he’s waited. He wouldn’t trade feeling this way because of Kaidan for the world.

“See? You’re not so bad,” Kaidan whispers, pulling away from his lips.

“Yeah?”

Kaidan nods. “Yeah. Don’t worry. You’re perfectly good to me.”

John smiles back. “Okay.”

Kaidan gently strokes the side of his face, and swallows. He looks down at John with such adoration he has to be dreaming. There’s no way someone could feel this way about him, nonetheless Kaidan.

“Glad we settled this,” Kaidan says,

“Uh, me too,” John replies. 

Kaidan eases himself down onto John’s chest and slips an arm over him hesitantly. They’re still figuring out what’s okay, and what’s too soon, too weird. But this — for now — is perfect. John holds him back and kisses the top of Kaidan’s head. He wants to tell him that he loves him now, but it’s too soon, and he’s not even sure if that’s what this is. But all he knows is that he’s happy, and he prays that it doesn’t have to end soon.

“We staying here for the night?”

“We” sends shivers over John’s skin. A unit. Partners. People who do and decide things together.

“At least until the fire dies down,” he says, “otherwise we’ll freeze our asses off.”

Kaidan lets out a soft laugh. “Okay. You’re welcome to come back to my room after… you know… for more practice.”

John shakes his head. “Now you’re taking the joke too far.”

“Is that a no?”

“No to the joke, yes to more time with you,” he replies.

“Good,” Kaidan says, and snuggles closer to him. 

And so they stay there, curled up in one another, until the last embers of the fire die out.


End file.
